Government to ban men over 50 from wearing embarrassing hats in public

Under the forthcoming Sartorial Standards (Male Headwear) Regulations, the government will ban men over 50 from wearing most forms of headgear in public.

The Regulations will focus on the public wearing of black, broad-brimmed hats, which some men seem to think make them look cool or macho.

'In fact,' said a spokesman, 'it just makes them look complete idiots. I don't know whether they think they're Clint Eastwood, but they're not - they're just men who realise they are getting older and imagine that wearing a hat will make them look young and virile, or mature and virile. All it does is make them look like self-abusers.'

Also targetted are baseball caps and 'retro' flat caps. 'Baseball caps make them look about as trendy as William Hague,' said the spokesman, Martin Laverton, who asked not to be named. 'And flat caps are meant to be coool in a retro way, but just make the wearers look sad - or like Nigel Farage, which is far worse.'

Exempted are sun hats for very elderly men, anything worn at an airport, on the grounds that most people are badly dressed at airports anyway, and hats for private use between consenting adults.

Next on the government's list are men over 50 who wear studs or earrings. The spokesman said: 'Any man over fifty who wears earrings and a broad-brimmed black hat in public will be instantly imprisoned without trial, for the sake of the community.'

Hmmm! Not sure I can put this into Room 101:
I wear a hat to keep the sun off my face and out of my eyes, to keep the rain off my glasses or to keep me warm. I seldom go out without a hat and have:
An old gardening hat (floppy brimmed canvas), a flat cap, a wide brimmed hand-made leather winter hat, a smart city trilby (midnight blue), a couple of seriously-cold-weather bobble hats (sans bobbles of course) and a smart straw Panama for summer plus a few older Panamas in various states of decay.